


Father's Day

by cyren2132



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Father's Day, Foster families, Found Family, Gen, Introspection, Loss of Child, Memories, loss of parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 11:44:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4178577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyren2132/pseuds/cyren2132
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Father's Day affects each member of SG-1 a little differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Butter Pecan

She hadn’t meant to go there.

When she left the house it was just to run to the store for some ice cream. Daniel and Teal’c were coming over that night, and she knew they could never resist a bowl of chocolate ice cream. With General O’Neill in Washington, the remains of SG-1 had taken to monthly team nights in an effort to fill the void left by their promoted leader.

Pizza. Popcorn. Ice cream. A few movies. Good friends. It was all she had been thinking about that day, but when her feet stopped in front of the grocery’s meager greeting card selection everything was forgotten.

Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the garish green and yellow sign warning all who passed not to forget a Father’s Day card. Was it really Father’s Day? Already? She reached out a hand and grabbed the first card from the rack.

_Daddy, for everything you’ve done for me, and those you’ve yet to do, I just wanted to give thanks and - though you surely know it - say that I love you._

Jacob Carter had never been a man of sentiment. Gifts and cards and mushy phrases weren't his thing. ‘It’s not the things we buy or the obligatory phrases we trot out once every year,’ he had said so many years ago. ‘It’s the things we do. It’s the things we say every day or the heartfelt things we don’t say often enough.’

Sam went straight to work after he died. What better way to honor her father than saving the world a few times, right? Now she wished she had taken a little time. She looked at the other cards that peeked out from their holders. They were full of cartoon critters and funny phrases. Truth be told, those were the ones that really set her father off. ‘If you‘re going to waste your money, you could at least take it seriously,’ he would mutter.

She looked at the card in her hands. It was the sort of card he would tolerate. It was simple, and it was sincere…but in the end he’d sigh and file it away with the other things he only kept because trashing them would hurt the sender.

No, Jacob Carter was a man of action. A man of grand gestures and honor and moving forward. ‘If you’ve made a mistake, own it and move on,’ he had said more than once in her lifetime.

Sam carefully placed the card back in its slot, running her hand gently over the heavy paper. “I know I didn’t say it enough,” she whispered, “but I love you, Dad.” With a deep breath she rapped her knuckles twice on the card and walked away.

As she made her way to the freezer section she decided to honor her father in a way he would truly enjoy. It wouldn’t kill Daniel and Teal’c to try something new. She opened the frost-covered door and pulled out a quart of ice cream. Butter pecan. His favorite.


	2. The Pen

Daniel looked at the blank page on his desk. The paper was thick, cream-colored and line-free. High quality. He bought it that morning, but the pen of equal caliber in his hand had been around for a long time. He could still remember the day he found it hiding in a dusty box of his father’s belongings, its own box wrapped in simple brown paper with the words “For Danny, love Dad” neatly scrawled on top.

A gift from heaven, June, his first foster mother, had called it before gently plucking it from his fingers and putting it away for safe-keeping. He hadn’t blamed her. Even though he was an exceptionally careful little boy, they both knew this bit of exquisiteness had no business in the hands of a child. How he had forgotten about it, he’d never know. But he had. When the time came to go to a new family, he had kissed June’s cheek and left the house without giving the pen a second thought.

She found him and returned it when he graduated high school. He was happy to have it back, but used it sparingly. He treasured what memories he held of his father, and every time he put that pen to paper the memories flowed as even and smooth as the black ink. He didn’t want to waste a drop or use it for mundane, everyday things. No, this pen was only used under special circumstances.

Daniel hadn’t paid much attention to Father’s Day during the last 20 years. It was hard growing up and watching all the kids around him make construction paper cards proclaiming their love. Daniel would always make a half-hearted effort at a card proclaiming his appreciation for whomever had taken him in, but he was always envious of the other kids and privately worried that giving the cards to his foster fathers would be some indication that he loved his own father less.

He got over it, realizing instead that those men were kind and deserving of whatever love he could give them, for they always opened their hearts and homes to him--even if it was only briefly. He tried to keep in touch with the ones who had meant the most, but school and then work always kept him busy or away.

Before long, Father’s Day was but a distant memory for him. He hadn’t felt close enough to anyone to warrant Father’s Day wishes since college, and honorary ‘because-it’s-that-day-again’ tributes to the dead and gone seemed hackneyed and artificial.

This year was different.

It had taken a few years, but Daniel finally felt at home. He was always comfortable and at ease at the SGC, but now when he looked around he saw the brothers and sisters he truly loved, and he knew they loved him--even when they fought. But it wasn’t brother’s day or sister’s day, if those days even existed.

It was Father’s Day, and for the first time in years it didn’t feel quite like a fake, commercial day. So he sat, with old pen poised over new paper and began to write. As the ink seeped into the page, memories of his father mingled with memories of his friend, and Daniel felt at peace.

_General Hammond,_

_I wanted to thank you for everything…_


	3. World's Greatest Dad

Teal’c didn’t understand Father’s Day.

He first noticed it when he saw an airman drinking coffee from a mug proclaiming him the World’s Greatest Dad. He asked O’Neill who had the authority to bestow such a title on the man. Earth was a well-populated planet with an abundance of fathers, and it seemed unlikely this man had bested them all in competition.

O’Neill informed him the mug had likely come from the man’s child. Teal’c cocked his head to the side.

“Tau’ri children campaign for their fathers to win?”

“What? No, Teal’c,” O’Neill said with a laugh before explaining the Earth custom of Father’s Day: one day a year when children celebrate their fathers with gifts and meals and time spent together. It still didn’t make a lot of sense. On Chulak, a child was to honor his father every day, and celebrations and feasts were reserved for the gods.

But still, knowledge of the Earth day made him take more notice of it. From the ubiquitous coffee mugs, the brightly colored greeting cards and advertisements promising shopping deals “Dad is sure to love,” Teal’c couldn’t help but let his thoughts wander to his son Rya’c.

The last time he saw Rya’c, the boy had been brainwashed by Apophis to hate his father and attempt mass destruction on Earth. Fortunately, Teal’c and his wife Drey’auc were able to undo the programming and get their son back, but then he left with his mother.

Earth and Teal’c’s battle was no place for the boy. On most days, Teal’c didn’t have the luxury of pondering his son’s life. The fight with the Goa’uld took precedence. He was doing good, important work for Rya'c's future, he told himself, and he couldn’t afford the distraction. But once a year — Earth’s third Sunday in June — Teal’c considered it his prerogative and took a moment to mourn the fatherhood he missed and hope for a time they could be together again.


	4. The Box

It had been years since Jack looked in the box Sarah had given him.

“It’s not mine to keep,” she said as she handed it tearfully over. He’d lifted the lid only for a second before closing it and shoving the shoe box into a corner of his closet.

Jack ignored it for a long time. Its contents were little more than painful reminders of the son he had lost and the family he felt he would never have again. But slowly things began to change, until suddenly he looked around him and realized he had found a new family in Stargate Command and SG-1.

Of course, he wasn’t stupid. He called them his “kids” but he never lost sight of the fact they and the rest of the people working in Cheyenne Mountain were grown men and women — his brothers and sisters in arms and in life. But a bond was a bond, and a family was a family. And that made it all the easier when he spied the ragged box corner on the top shelf of his closet to pull it out, blow the dust off the top and lift the lid again.

Sitting inside, protected from time, were so many memories. A baseball. Photographs. A clay handprint and broken crayons and army men. Little notes scribbled on scraps of paper. He pulled out one piece of paper, ripped from a Big Chief tablet, and unfolded it.

_“Happy Fathers Day I Love You Daddy”_

There was no punctuation, a few letters were backward and the note was adorned with a few hearts he could tell were drawn by Sarah, because he always thought they looked a little like butts. But it was perfect. Instead of feeling sad. Instead of wanting to cry or drown his sorrows, he smiled. And when the few mementos he picked out for his office were noticed and commented on, he regaled his team -- his friends, his family -- with stories of Charlie that left everyone, himself included, warm and happy.

And for that, he would be forever grateful.


End file.
